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Ho-hum performances, pacing and writing turn the comic book hero into a big-screen bore.
By STEVE PERSALL, Times Film Critic
© St. Petersburg Times, published February 13, 2003
Comic book superheroes always need an alter ego, a bland, benign identity to disguise his or her invincibility. Ben Affleck is a good choice to play that kind of role. The heroic part escapes him, however, making Daredevil much less exciting than Marvel Comics fans are expecting.
Daredevil will make a lot of money at the box office this weekend because a lot of people loved Spider-Man last year. It's the closest thing to a sequel greedy producers could expect. In fact, the slipshod plot and generic performances feel like a careless sequel although it's the first Daredevil film. It's not like we've seen it all before, but almost.
One thing we haven't seen in comics-to-screen is a central performance as distinctly noncharismatic as Affleck's. (George Clooney in Batman & Robin came close.) Affleck has a properly square jaw but no acting chops, or at least no opportunity to display them in Mark Steven Johnson's screenplay. Affleck is content to let the padded, candy apple-red costume do all the work for him. His customary narrow range of expressions gets pinched even more with a mask, a blank stare and milky contact lenses.
Affleck plays Matt Murdock, the son of a boxer (David Keith in flashbacks) killed by mobsters for refusing to throw a fight. Young Matt (Scott Terra) gets blinded by biological waste, awakening in a hospital to find that his other senses have been heightened to a superhuman degree. Only Matt's hearing, which torments him with intense sounds, and his smell make any difference in Daredevil. Perhaps taste and touch are being saved for the sequel.
Matt harnesses his heightened senses plus an unexplained, uncanny sense of balance to become a fighting machine. He pledges to battle for justice, one way or another. Then he becomes a lawyer (insert your own joke here). When bad guys escape conviction, they don't get away from Daredevil.
Now the avenger is chasing a wealthy giant called Kingpin (Michael Clarke Duncan) and his hired assassin Bullseye (Colin Farrell, the liveliest part of the movie). Meanwhile, Matt meets Elektra Natchios (Jennifer Garner), daughter of Kingpin's reluctant accomplice. Elektra's own tragic past makes her a warrior and therefore Matt's love interest. Events make her an enemy of Daredevil, but not for long. Sustaining that adversarial dynamic might have led to a better movie.
Listing the faults of Daredevil is easy: The pre-Daredevil segments are dull and predictable, the acrobatic fights and flights are too kinetic to savor, Kingpin is a one-note villain without a grand scheme, there isn't enough Bullseye bravura, and too many scenes exist only for the snippets of rock songs that justify a soundtrack CD.
If Matt's hyper-hearing is his Achilles' heel, if he must sleep in a sensory deprivation chamber for peace, then why does he crank up the stereo to drown out the city? That's noise, isn't it? Why doesn't he cringe then?
Oh, maybe he can tune out the din when he wants. Then why do the sounds of a passing subway train or clanging pipes drive him to his knees in the midst of pursuits? The questions don't end there.
As the Joker asked in Batman: Where does he get those wonderful toys? Since the police have been chasing Daredevil for years, can't they trace where his utility stick could be manufactured, or exactly who purchased yards of flaming red leather? Without an Alfred the butler around, who did the tailoring? Nearly every scene gets soaked by rain or fire sprinklers, so why doesn't that leather shrink or make a squeaking noise that would drive him crazy?
Good movies don't give audiences pause to consider such questions. Between the brawls, Johnson's pacing of Daredevil is deadly, without much dialogue to pass the time. This movie could have used a bit of the special effects razzle-dazzle that spoiled the last act of Spider-Man. The ghostly sonar effects showing how Matt "sees" through sound are interesting, and Farrell's mad dog performance is fun. But overall Daredevil is nothing to marvel about.
Grade: C
Director: Mark Steven Johnson
Cast: Ben Affleck, Jennifer Garner, Colin Farrell, Michael Clarke Duncan, Jon Favreau, Joe Pantoliano, David Keith
Screenplay: Mark Steven Johnson, based on Marvel Comics characters created by Bill Everett, Stan Lee, Frank Miller
Rating: PG-13; violence, profanity, sensuality
Running time: 99 min.